Ferdinand I (of Two Sicilies)

Ferdinand I (of Two Sicilies) (1751-1825), King of the Two Sicilies (1816-1825); as Ferdinand IV, he was also King of Naples (1759-1806, 1815-1825), and as Ferdinand III, King of Sicily (1806-1815). He was the third son of Charles IV, King of the Two Sicilies, who became Charles III, King of Spain, in 1759. At the same time Ferdinand became King of Naples. He ruled for eight years under the regency of his father's chief minister Bernardo Tanucci. In 1768 he married the daughter of Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, and replaced Tanucci with John Francis Edward Acton, an Englishman. Influenced by his wife and by Acton, Ferdinand allied Naples with the coalition opposing France in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. The French captured Naples in 1799 and there set up the Parthenopean Republic. Ferdinand took refuge in Palermo, Sicily, until an army under Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo recovered Naples later that year. Ferdinand's return was marked by mass executions of Neapolitans who had sided with the French. In 1806 he fled once more to Sicily before the advance of Joseph Bonaparte, who had been made king of Naples by his brother, Napoleon, and who captured Naples soon thereafter. Ferdinand's authority was limited to Sicily from 1806 until 1815; his reign was unpopular, and for a time (1812) his son acted for him as regent. Ferdinand returned to Naples after Napoleon's overthrow in 1815. The following year, against the will of most of his subjects, he reconstituted the kingdom of the Two Sicilies along autocratic lines with the aid of Austria. He was succeeded by his son, Francis I.